"Soren! Stop!"

Soren wrapped his fingers around the bit of gate he had uncovered and yanked on it as hard as he could, to absolutely no avail. His hands slipped and he took a step back to regain his balance on the snowy, rocky heap.

"Soren." Jale moved in front of him. The whole time he had been digging, he had ignored her. She had said his name and tugged on his arm and said other things, and he hadn't stopped digging. He had to get to Tanden. But now she was standing in his way. He contemplated pushing her out of the way, but he didn't want to hurt her.

"Soren," Jale said again. "Look at your hands. You're hurting yourself."

Soren's gaze dropped to his hands. His gloves were torn to shreds, and the bigger gashes revealed bloody, sliced skin. Absently he knew that he should feel something. Some sort of stinging pain. But he couldn't feel his hands at all. Which meant he could keep digging. He stepped forward, determined to pull the gate open even though it was still mostly buried in rock and snow.

"No," Jale said firmly. "You need to stop."

He didn't understand what she was saying. Why would he stop? Did she forget what had just happened? "Tanden's in there."

"I know. But look." She pointed at the hill behind her. No, she pointed at the divot in the hill behind her. Where the cave ceiling had given out and left a pit. "The whole thing caved in, Soren." She was holding back tears, he realized.

For a second he wanted to be angry at her. She had brought them to the cave. It was her fault. The desire to be angry at someone, to blame anyone, boiled up inside him and he stepped forward. "So you're saying he's dead," he growled. It was so much easier to be angry than to let the idea actually settle in his head. Easier to treat the idea like a cruel lie than to let himself consider how likely it was.

Jale stood her ground. She was so small. Even standing slightly higher on the snow didn't make her tall enough to look him straight on. "No. He could have made it further back. It doesn't look like the mine collapsed, or the big cave. Just the entrance cave."

He realized that she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince him. The anger faded. He fell onto his knees. Chunks of ice and rock jabbed into his legs, but he didn't care.

He couldn't blame Jale. There was no enemy. Not like Toliver in West Draulin. Soren had been hurt and Tanden had someone to fight. Who was Soren supposed to fight? The snow?

"Jale..." her name came out shaky and weak.

She was suddenly kneeling in front of him, her arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a hug. "I'm sorry." She mumbled into his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

He wrapped his arms around her, buried his face into her scarf, and cried. He cried because he was upset and helpless. There was no action he could take to distract himself.

Jale let him cry, but not for very long. Soon, she pushed him back and with a detached sort of calm got to work peeling his ruined gloves off of his equally ruined hands. "There are plenty of entrances to the mine. If we ride to Rald Caro, we can get someone to take us in and find another route to Tanden. Because he's there, in the mine tunnel." She pulled an extra pair of gloves from one of her pockets and tugged them over Soren's hands. They were too small, but the snug pressure actually felt good.

Soren stared at his hands and watched dots of blood seep through the wool. The compass ring Tanden had once given him stretched the fabric. "How do you know?" he whispered.

Jale wiped her eyes. "I don't. But I have to believe he is, because if he is, we can rescue him. And going around through the mine will be much faster than digging through all of this." She stood up and started towards the three horses. The animals shied away from her at first, understandably skittish after what had happened but too well trained to completely run away from the protection humans provided. When she finally coaxed one close enough that she could hold its reins, the other two followed.

Soren forced himself to his feet and joined her. He was starting to feel his hands again, which, he had decided, wasn't a good thing. As he climbed onto his horse, his hands felt like they were being sliced all over again.

"Soren," Jale said. "We need to go fast. Just hold on and let your horse follow me."

He nodded. He wasn't a good enough rider to do anything other than try to hold on.

Jale guided her horse back towards the slope they had originally climbed down. She let the horse pick its own route up, but as soon as they were on flatter ground, she urged it into a trot, then a canter. Soren's horse kept up, and Tanden's followed from further back.

Jale set a quick pace, but there were obstacles. The avalanche had carved a trench down the side of the hill, tearing down trees and forcing aside huge boulders as it went. In some places the path was gone, but Jale found a way through the carnage until they stepped onto the path again.

There was less evidence of the earthquake when they reached the main path that would lead them back to Morie Caro. She turned left, taking them towards Rald Caro instead. Soren didn't question her or argue, he just let his horse follow her.

The little horses galloped along the path, and once they had crested the next hill, a village appeared amongst the trees. Soren remembered Jale saying it was dreary, and she was right. There were more buildings than in Morie Caro, but they were worn down. Aside for a bit of cleared fields for crops, the forest bordered Rald Caro so closely that some of the buildings were being swallowed by the trees.

Jale burst through the middle of the town, already shouting. People stopped in their tracks or stepped out of their homes to watch her. Everyone looked as tired as the buildings did. Nobody replied or moved forward to help.

"Tell them I can pay," Soren said urgently.

But before Jale could, a boy jogged away from one of the houses. A woman, probably his mother, called after him. He ignored her and ran straight up to Jale. He said something, and she replied.

Soren watched them and tried to understand by reading their tones and their body language. Then the boy ran past Soren to hop onto the back of Tanden's horse.

"Follow him," Jale said. "He can take us."

The boy led them along a path out of the village. Soren wished he would go faster, but it really didn't take long for them to stop outside of a large cave. The boy dismounted and went to a crate by the opening. He opened it and pulled out a metal and glass lamp, talking the whole time.

Jale translated. "They felt the earthquake in Rald Caro, but it wasn't bad enough for the miners to stop working. He's too young to work but he's explored the mines with his older brother, so he knows how we can get to the caves with the drawings. There are some narrow passages but he thinks you'll be able to fit. Take that."

Soren realized the boy was offering him a second lamp, and he accepted it. For a moment their eyes met. The boy was maybe ten or eleven, and he looked up at Soren with awe. Then he seemed to remember the task at hand, or maybe he remembered the money he had been offered, and he turned around to plunge into the mine.

The first tunnel they walked through was wide and well lit. The walls were smooth, and cart tracks had been worn into the rocky floor. They walked past little rooms, most of which were filled with shelves of tools and supplies. One little room was covered in hay, and a pair of small horses were happily nosing through it.

They didn't see anybody, but Soren could hear voices and echoing thuds and clangs coming from many of the tunnels they passed by. The boy led them confidently past most of them, then turned into a darker, rougher passageway. The only light came from their lanterns, and still the boy walked confidently through the darkness. It was the kind of confidence that came with familiarity, which Soren found comforting. The boy truly did seem to know his way around the mines.

The next passageway was rougher still. As he ducked under low ceilings and stepped over bumps in the floor, Soren realized he wasn't seeing any signs of humans in the tunnel. No chisel marks on the walls, no crates, and certainly a cart wouldn't fit.

"Jale, is this a cave? Are we close?"

She repeated his question in Tallenese, and the boy replied. "The mines meet with lots of caves. This one might have been a river. We'll meet up with an older mineshaft soon, and then there's a really narrow part we'll have to squeeze through. And then he says we'll be in the tunnel that leads to the drawing cave. He..." she paused to talk to the boy again, then added, "He's concerned that the part of the tunnel might be flooded. Apparently, it happens some years in spring."

Soren ducked under a rock Jale had easily walked beneath. "I can swim."

"In the dark? We'll see," Jale said.

They fell silent. Soon they reached the older mineshaft. It looked like it had been abandoned for quite some time. Water ran down the walls, over bumps and ridges that once again made Soren think of rock icicles. The floor was slick with water and some sort of slimy green plant. The boy didn't seem bothered, he started down the left corridor.

They were so far unground. The only sounds were ones they were making. Feet slapping against the wet ground, rustling of their jackets, breathing. The air tasted old, musty and mildewy. In the still air even the cold felt different.

Soren wasn't sure how long they walked along the old mineshaft. He moved mechanically, following after the boy and Jale in the same trusting way Tanden's horse had followed their gallop to Rald Caro. His thoughts wandered. He imagined Tanden sitting at the end of a long, dark tunnel. If Tanden was hurt, Soren would carry him out. His hands stung and throbbed at the thought of putting any pressure on them, but he didn't care. Tanden would wrap his arms around Soren's neck and kiss him, and he would say something stupid and charming, and Soren would carry him the entire way back to Rald Caro.

Soren didn't want to, couldn't, entertain the possibility that this was pointless. That Tanden was crushed in the cold darkness and had been dead since the moment Soren lost sight of him. He couldn't consider it. So instead, to keep those thoughts at bay, he thought about his life with Tanden. Every single part of their relationship flittered through his mind.

The morning in Deor-Morcea when he had woken up beside the most beautiful man he had ever seen, just to find out he was a Tandran. The weeks of trying to find his place on the ship while trying to deny his mounting feelings for Tanden. Captivating, tantalizing Tanden. Then getting to know him for real, slowly peeling back his carefully maintained persona and learning to understand the deliberate way he spoke. Seeing Tanden get so excited about something new that his act slipped. And then, finally, admitting his feelings in Stanin. Since he couldn't remember anything of their first night together, that morning acted as Soren's first experience with Tanden. It had been so good he almost regretted pushing Tanden away for so long. Tanden's impatience after getting his beautiful tattoo. Being welcomed by the rest of the Tandran family as an equal.

Tanden's ferociousness when Soren had been hurt by Toliver.

On the Heart of Morcea, Tanden's fascination with the Festival of Masks. How he'd hesitated before kissing that girl, just to make sure Soren really meant it. In Till, spending the night and following day with Ara. Tanden's excitement when they started their journey with Jale, how he had translated every bit of information he had learned, no matter how small. Being known as Tanden's eeto in Esler Tigo, and realizing just how much he enjoyed it. The previous evening, Tanden asking to be distracted. Taken care of.

When they found Tanden, when, not if, Soren would spend every day of the rest of his life taking care of him.

He suddenly became more aware of his surroundings and realized that they had left the mineshaft and were heading down a very thin, winding passage. It seemed more like a crack in the rock than an actual cave. The boy slipped through easily. Jale sometimes had to crouch. Soren found himself shuffling through gaps sideways, awkwardly crouching or crawling through small holes. He forced himself through it all, just thinking about the moment he found Tanden.

When the crack joined another mineshaft, Soren was temporarily relieved. Until he realized that the reflection to their right was not caused by the damp floor, but by a pool.

"That's the way?" he guessed.

Jale nodded. "He says he can't swim, but this tunnel should lead straight to the cave. I think..." she hesitated. "I think you should go alone, and I'll stay with him. Just in case... not that I think he will... but if he gets scared and runs off we'll be stuck down here forever."

"Good idea," Soren agreed. He handed her his lantern and eyed the flooded tunnel. There was no way of knowing how long the flooded section was, but Soren wasn't about to let that stop him. He took off his jacket, knowing it would weigh him down, and he would appreciate it being warm and dry afterwards. Then he took a deep breath and waded into the water.

"Soren, you won't have light on the other side. So be careful. And when you find him... just promise that whatever you find, you'll come back."

He shivered as the water came up around his waist. "I'll come back. With him." Then he lowered himself the rest of the way. The cold nearly forced the breath of his lungs, but he started forward anyway.